Salon.com > Condoleezza Rice

Phil Mickelson and Condoleezza Rice, golf partners

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:49:00 +0000

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Phil Mickelson has won three green jackets, and he was the one asking all the questions Sunday during a practice round at the Masters.

In his group was Augusta National's newest member — former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"Awesome," Mickelson said after playing 18 holes with his agent and Augusta members Rice and Lee Styslinger. "She's one of my favorite people to be around. She's so knowledgeable and interesting to talk to. I always learn so much. When I saw she became a member, one of the first things I did was schedule a game close to Masters time. The fact she's here, we were able to work it out. It was really cool."

Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore made history in August when they became the first women invited to join the home of the Masters.

Moore is not expected until later in the week.

Rice had lunch with Mickelson and then donned her green jacket to meet with other members on the practice range. Even though she has been a member for more than seven months, it was no less striking to see her in the elegantly tapered jacket that for eight decades had been worn only by men.

Condi joins CBS News

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:12:00 +0000

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is joining CBS News as a contributor. Her new role was announced Sunday as she appeared as a panelist on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"Everybody knows Condoleezza Rice was President Bush’s Secretary of State but I'm highly pleased to announce she has a new job. As of today, she’s joining CBS News as a contributor," said host Bob Schieffer said.

Ahead of the inauguration of President Obama's second term, Rice recalled beginning a second term working under George W. Bush when she was nominated Secretary of State, and how quickly the time passes. "You better know what you want to achieve in these three years or so," she said.

Via CBS:

Condoleezza Rice: GOP sent ‘mixed messages’

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:47:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Republican Party must adapt better to rapidly changing demographics in the United States, saying the GOP sent "mixed messages" in the election campaign on immigration and women's issues.

Rice tells "CBS This Morning" the changing face of America "really necessitates" new thinking. She says, quote, "When you send mixed messages, sometimes people hear only one side of that." Rice says the GOP came close to matching the Democrats in the popular vote. But she also acknowledges that "clearly we are losing important segments" of the electorate. Rice adds that the party needs to "appeal to those groups."

Rice says she wouldn't be interested in succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, even if asked to do so by President Barack Obama.

Condoleezza Rice, of all people, rehabilitates the GOP

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 03:05:00 +0000

Condoleezza Rice is an odd choice to deliver a prime-time Republican convention speech, though she's demonstrated a perhaps surprising enthusiasm for campaigning for Romney this year. But she is a reminder not just of a Bush administration that this convention is studiously ignoring, but deeply connected to the Bush administration's most defining fuck-up: the lengthy, expensive and brutal Iraq War, and the dishonest propaganda campaign that led to it.

She's the only remotely credible foreign policy voice in attendance (sorry, Sen. McCain) but she has no successes at all to speak of. On domestic policy, she's decidedly more moderate than the room and has never demonstrated an interest in the economic issues (desperate fear of redistribution) that lately define the party.

While the speech was in progress, it felt unfocused. She was mad about some obscure things Obama has done in foreign policy -- China has all the free trades and we don't have any of the free trades! -- and she wouldn't sign on to the "We didn't build it" bullshit. Her very indirect attack on Obama was that his fecklessness leaves the world wondering "Where does America stand?" Her clearest endorsement of modern Republican economic policy was a general statement of distaste regarding anti-rich rhetoric.

Republican National Convention: Heart of whiteness

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:33:00 +0000

It’s Republican National Convention time again, a quadrennial televised spectacle during which the national party rounds up and then trots out as many minorities and women as possible in an attempt to convince viewers that Republicans have achieved a level of racial and gender diversity that, in fact, exist only during such showcase moments. At conventions past, this charade meant giving Lt. Gov. Michael Steele or Defense Secretary Colin Powell key speaking duties, or deploying Liddy Dole with a microphone in hand to work the aisles of the convention floor, while off-screen the Tom DeLays and Jim DeMints host pricey, off-stage cocktail parties.

On cue, of course, every four years Democrats and liberals sneer that their opponents’ display is a mask donned temporarily by the GOP to obscure its white-male face beneath. Although the Democrats haven’t reached parity either — especially on gender — the Republicans really do lag well behind.

Why American reconstruction fails

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:53:00 +0000

Some images remain like scars on my memory. One of the last things I saw in Iraq, where I spent a year with the Department of State helping squander some of the $44 billion American taxpayers put up to “reconstruct” that country, were horses living semi-wild among the muck and garbage of Baghdad. Those horses had once raced for Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein and seven years after their “liberation” by the American invasion of 2003, they were still wandering that unraveling, unreconstructed urban landscape looking, like many other Iraqis, for food.

I flew home that same day, a too-rapid change of worlds, to a country in which the schools of my hometown in Ohio could not afford to pay teachers a decent wage. Once great cities were rotting away as certainly as if they were in Iraq, where those horses were scrabbling to get by. To this day I’m left pondering these questions: Why has the United States spent so much money and time so disastrously trying to rebuild occupied nations abroad, while allowing its own infrastructure to crumble untended? Why do we even think of that as “policy”?

Condi for VP?

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:33:00 +0000

Condi-mentum?: The Drudge Report, the conservative news aggregator with close ties to the Romney campaign, reported last night that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a frontrunner for Mitt Romney’s vice presidential pick. The Romney campaign has not commented on the report, but Drudge has long been seen as a mouthpiece of the former Massachusetts governor's campaign, loyally attacking his GOP opponents during the primary and defending Mitt when he gets in trouble.

Still, there’s plenty of reason to discount the report. Rice has repeatedly said, “There is no way I would do this,” when asked about the VP slot. She also holds some views that are anathema to the GOP base, including a moderate stance on abortion and immigration. Some have speculated the report, presumably coordinated or leaked from the Romney campaign, was really meant to distract from bad headlines on Bain Capital, and to earn Romney some points for supposedly seriously considering a female minority candidate for the number-two spot.

No, Condi won’t be Mitt’s Palin

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 18:26:00 +0000

Back in May, Politico gave us “an incredibly boring white guy” as an anonymously sourced description of what Mitt Romney was looking for in a running mate. Here it is July, and Bill Kristol is still finding that prospect incredibly boring, so he reads a reported but speculative RealClearPolitics article with a short list of Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal – and comes up with a column about Condoleezza Rice, who isn’t even mentioned in the piece.

Why? Because Ann Romney said so. Or rather, she said an incredibly vague thing when she was asked about whether Mitt would nominate a woman: "We've been looking at that, and I love that option as well." This is a very thin strand on which to hang anything. The alternative would have been for Ann Romney to say that no women were being considered at all, which is, at the moment, considered poor form.

Rice on VP: ‘There is no way that I will do this’

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:15:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to tamp down any speculation she could be Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate.

Rice tells "CBS This Morning" she's not interested in joining Romney, who has more than enough delegates to win the presidential nod at the party convention in Tampa.

Rice says, quote, "I didn't run for student council president. I don't see myself in any way in elective office."

Rice also says "there is no way that I will do this because it's really not me. I know my strengths and weaknesses." She says Romney will pick a strong running mate and she'll support the ticket.

Rice says that Romney will bring "first and foremost an understanding" of the nature of the United States' role in the world."

Baseless Condi Rice speculation making a comeback

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:10:00 +0000

[UPDATED BELOW] Joseph Curl, former White House correspondent for the Washington Times, is bringing me back to the good old days of 2006 in his latest opinion column for the conservative paper. It's a breathless report that Condoleezza Rice will seek the vice presidency, and it's a classic of the genre.

Any amateur can speculate that Chris Christie will enter the presidential race, or posit a Mike Bloomberg third-party run, or imagine Hillary Clinton launching a primary challenge against Barack Obama. After all, those three have actually won elections and expressed political ambitions. It takes a real pro to decide to build buzz around someone who not only hasn't ever run for anything, but who's never expressed a desire to run for anything.

Rice, the national security advisor in George W. Bush's first presidential term and secretary of state in his second, is currently a professor at Stanford with the requisite right-wing think tank fellowship. She has not said or done anything "political" in years. But Curl has been hearing things!

Moammar Gadhafi’s weird Condoleezza Rice video

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:47:00 +0000

When Moammar Gadhafi was usurped earlier this year, much was made of a photo album, recovered from his compound by Libyan rebels, filled entirely with photographs of Condoleezza Rice. Though the Libyan strongman's infatuation with our former secretary of state was no secret, the discovery of a Condi scrapbook still struck many as totally bizarre. And it was only the tip of the iceberg.

During a visit to "The Daily Show" last night, Rice recounted her uncomfortable meeting with Gadhafi back in 2008, during which the dictator made very clear his admiration. In much the same way smitten high school students trade mix tapes to articulate their affections, the former dictator presented Rice with a video -- one that showed her meeting with various heads of state, scored to a song composed expressly for Rice.

The song's name? "Black Flower in the White House."